“It’s not clear how far back this situation goes,” Grim said. “Our recent problem began a few months ago, with demons, but Lyyll’s started maybe two decades earlier.”
“Lyyll, then.” Xsing turned to her. “Explain.”
Lyyll’s burbling began, but at the same time, Darien clearly heard her say, “I was working on some transit gate math for my clan mother…” The burbles faded and the English words came clear and grammatical. That was one hell of a translation spell. How would human history have been different if we’d all spoken to each other as clearly?
Darien shook his head and tried to focus on what Lyyll was saying but he was tired, and his thoughts kept drifting. He hugged Pip and wondered if it would be rude to sit down on the floor. Would that bother the seven-foot-tall green alien, or the little rainbow ones? A laugh wanted to emerge from his throat but he held it back. Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.
***
Silas leaned back against a wall, his rump getting numb from the hard floor under him, and bumped Darien’s knee with his own. They’d moved from the storage bay to what was probably a classroom, with a kind of chalkboard covering one wall. Except much more advanced than chalk, because you could draw lines in any color with the touch of some kind of inkless pen. The math-whiz people were busy, while he and Darien had decided to sit down, shut up, and watch.
Jasper had gone to one knee and Lyyll squatted in front of the board, deep in discussion with Xsing. Their debate had left Silas behind four equations ago, and Darien hadn’t even pretended to follow along. Magda was still listening, though, silent but intent. Silas decided he really needed to stop being surprised by her abilities. It’s the 1960s. What’s that new phrase? Women’s lib? Not that older female sorcerers had ever been slouches at keeping up with the men, but Coldwell’s generation didn’t like to admit it. I refuse to be part of Coldwell’s generation.
Beside him, Darien looked as wiped out as Silas felt. Silas slid an arm around Darien and was pleased when Darien leaned close and put his head on Silas’s shoulder. Silas wanted to kiss his hair, but that felt like one move too far, even if three-legged aliens probably didn’t care about men being homosexual.
Instead, Silas murmured, “At least we haven’t encountered a demon yet.”
Darien snorted softly. “Yet. I hope that Coordinator Shen guy isn’t being too hard on Pip.” Shen had taken the familiars off with him. Darien had protested, but Grim said they had voyager business to discuss— apparently another word for familiars— and promised wryly to bring Pip back with all four legs and tail intact.
“Shen did seem rather peeved with Pip, but I trust Grim to take care of our puppy.”
“I don’t know how much authority Grim has here, though. Against someone called an institute coordinator?”
Silas closed his arm around Darien. “You think Grim cares about levels of authority?”
That got an actual laugh from Darien. “True.” He rolled his head to look past Silas at the group in front of the chalkboard. “We’re a long way from home, huh?”
“Indeed.” Xsing was waving all three arms about as he explained something. “I really wish I had Mrs. Vaughn’s camera. No one’s going to believe this when we get home.” When, not if. Staying positive. He wondered if his mentors had ever told anyone about Lyyll.
Surely not Ferngold. Not Locke, who would’ve torn the house apart to find that portal had he known of it. And both had familiars who would’ve known what Lyyll was. Damned secretive old men.
Silas closed his eyes and dropped back into his memories, trying to pry loose some of the moments he’d locked away. Coldwell on his deathbed, no longer able to rise, thinned down to bone and sinew, gripping my hand with amazing strength. “Once more. There’s so much I haven’t taught you yet. Time for another transfer.”
Norrington, from his seat in a chair by the window, saying mildly, “Don’t you think you should save your strength?” And Coldwell rasping, “For what? Now, boy, drink your potion, draw the runes, and add our blood. Time for another session.”
Had the old men exchanged meaningful looks? Had they talked ahead of time about hiding the portal and Lyyll from him? What else didn’t you tell me? He’d gone into those sessions as open as he could, giving up control, adding his blood to Coldwell’s, handing over his strength and power so his mentor could step out of his failing body into the Veil. And step into Silas’s head.
The risks had been worth it, surely. The first high-powered demon he’d faced might’ve had him for lunch without Coldwell’s ghost whispering in his ear about how to find and pull in the right hell to match the demon. He’d gloried in surprising that demon, in having the skill at his fingertips, sending it screaming back into the fires.
But as he thought about portals now, about the house, and that small basement room, something whispered down in the dark. He felt as if Coldwell was stirring, behind some mental barrier that resembled the hasty brick wall the old men had built in the cellar. Did you plant secrets in my head?
He realized he’d let go of Darien and was pressing his hands to his head when Darien nudged him with an elbow. “What’s wrong?”
“Headache,” he prevaricated. Although it wasn’t entirely a lie. A scampering of feet across the floor saved him from inventing details.
“I’m still here!” Pip skidded to a stop in front of Darien, tail wagging. “Coordinator Shen says I’ll have to do remedial classwork an extra year when I come back, before I can maybe be trusted to graduate. But that won’t be forever and ever because I’m with Darien now and I get to stay. So hah!”
Let that be true. Silas couldn’t help smiling. “That’s good news.”
“Yes. Grim told them that since we were getting unsummoned demons on Earth, it might’ve been something odd about the world-gating that sucked me through too. He said it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”
Silas met Grim’s eyes over Pip’s head as the cat sauntered over. Grim smirked, and Silas decided not to explain the meaning of the phrase.
Grim bopped Pip’s rump lightly. “All that wagging is making me dizzy.” He turned to the rainbow figure beside him. “Come on, Kii, let’s see what the brains of the outfit have come up with.” He and Kii headed to stand beside Magda and confer with the math types at the blackboard.
Xsing suddenly elongated his legs, pushing his height up above a kneeling Jasper and looking around. “I think I have it. Let’s plug that into the simulator.”
“Simulator?” Magda asked.
“Yes. Come with me. Come along, everyone!” Xsing hurried toward the door. “It’s this way.”
They all followed the scientist through the modest doorway and along a low hallway. After the first few feet, Lyyll went down on all fours to avoid cracking her head, and Jasper and Silas had to duck at every doorway and arch. Darien murmured, “Finally a win for the short people of the world.”
Silas returned, “By going to another world.”
Darien licked a finger and gave him a point in the air.
They squeezed into the simulator room, and Darien gasped. Silas managed not to, but it was a close-run thing. The space was huge and not just domed, but spherical. The floor they were on formed a glass-railed balcony that ran around the circumference of the room. Above and below them, the walls arched in a near-perfect circle— a bowl below and a dome above. The hazy-gray material of the walls didn’t seem to be stone or concrete, but Silas hesitated to try to touch it.